Baltic bound flights disrupted amid downed Malaysia Airlines flight

Baltic bound flights will not fly over eastern Ukrainian airspace, Latvia's national carrier has said.

AirBaltic told nozare.lv that no delays were planned amid the crash of a Malaysia Airlines flight yesterday that killed all 298 on board.

The Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur flight was allegedly shot down whilst flying over eastern Ukraine.

"If delays do happen, we will inform about it beforehand," An AirBaltic statement said.

Elsewhere, Hungarian owned Wizz Air said it would be adjusting its flight pattern from Vilnius, Lithuania to Kutaisi, Georgia so that it does not fly over the war torn eastern Ukraine.

Estonian Air will continue to fly to Kiev from Tallinn, the airliner confirmed. The carrier does not fly over eastern Ukraine, an official said.

Both Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attack. Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko called the event an "act of terrorism.

The Ukrainian government claim that the plane was shut down by pro-Russia separatists.

Maris Gorodcovs, the head of the Civil Aviation Agency, said that the plane was flying at such height that in case of a technical flaw the pilots would have been able to inform air traffic control before the plane crashed.

Meanwhile, Ukraine has introduced stricter restrictions on flights above the area, and flights through the usual air corridors are currently impossible, Gorodcovs said.

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